The present invention generally relates to an article supply apparatus and, more particularly, to the apparatus for supplying articles of identical shape, for example, solid pharmaceutical products such as tablets, pills or hard or soft capsules, in predetermined position or posture in readiness for the successive transfer of the articles onto an article handling device.
As exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,889,591 and 4,354,602, patented June 17, 1975 and Oct. 19, 1982, respectively, and other numerous patent publications, for transporting pharmaceutical tablets successively from one station, for example, a supply station, to another processing station, while each of the tablets is aligned in position, a rotary drum is generally utilized of a type having a cylindrical outer peripheral surface formed, or provided, with at least one circumferentially extending row of circumferentially and radially equally spaced receptacles each for the support of the respective tablet by the effect of a suction force during the transportation thereof. The receptacles on the drum disclosed in the above mentioned U.S. Patents are each in the form of a radially inwardly recessed receptacle having a shape similar to the contour of the tablet handled thereby and are adapted to be communicated with a source of vacuum for exerting suction in the respective tablets only during the transportation from the supply station to a position a slight distance preceding the subsequent processing station.
At the supply station, the drum rotated continuously in one direction receives the tablets from a generally bottomless hopper having its open bottom overhanging and receiving therein a portion of the outer periphery of the drum so that some of the tablets which happen to sit in the respective receptacles can be sucked into and retained therein for the transportation.
A conventional tablet aligning apparatus utilizing the drum of the above described type in combination with the above described hopper has a handling capacity generally limited to about 400 tablets per minute at most while it has a problem in that a number of the tablets tend to be impaired at a location between the drum and the hopper.
On the other hand, the speed of inspection of the tablets has now been improved to about 1800 tablets per minute and, therefore, the development of a tablet handling apparatus having a tablet handling capability that can cope with the tablet inspecting speed is desired in the pharmaceutical field.